


My Only Sunshine

by Blakpaw



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Based off of a tumbler post, Depending on what your definition of happy is, M/M, This is mostly sad, has a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 22:09:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10885911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blakpaw/pseuds/Blakpaw
Summary: A ficlet based off of this tumbler post: https://gayforbatjokes.tumblr.com/post/160546636073/he-never-told-him-he-loves-him#notesOops I did another sad.Joker died. Again.





	My Only Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bernieloverstuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bernieloverstuff/gifts).



________________________________  
The Other Night, Dear,  
I dream I’d held you,  
In my arms.  
When I awoke, Dear,  
I was mistaken.  
So I bowed my head  
And I cried  
_______________________________

He can’t sleep. God knows he can’t sleep. He hasn’t slept for 3 day, 13 hours, and 48 minutes exactly.

How could he sleep with the guilt racking in his mind, the pain, the constant strings of “what if’s” that ran through his head. He can’t sleep, because when he does all he can hear is laughter over a beaten face, gurgling on it’s own blood.

___________________________________________  
You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey,  
You’ll never know, Dear,  
How much I love you.  
Please don’t take my sunshine away.  
____________________________________________

He can’t think of much else but that night anymore. He doesn’t know if it was his fault, or someone else. He doesn’t know whose fist was the last straw for that old broken body. He doesn’t care, because he blamed himself anyways. Blames himself for not seeing the signs of internal damage sooner, blames himself for not being fast enough to stop them from hurting the clown as bad as they did, he blames himself for everything Joker ever did, and everything that was done to him.

And he felt more guilty than he had in years. He feels like he’s nine again, in Alfred’s arms spluttering over the tears, and trying the shake the ringing of a gun shot out of his head. He feels like he caused everything to happen, like if he had intervened it would all be okay.

_____________________________________________  
I’ve always loved you,  
And made you happy,  
And nothing else could come between.  
But now you’ve left me  
To love another.  
You have shattered all of my dreams.  
_____________________________________________

He lays in bed most night wondering what would've happened if he had told Joker he loved him. He wonders if Joker would even believe him, if he had told him. He wonders if they would be happy together, if they could work past all the fighting and bickering and anger, and manage to make something wonderful of it.

But now he won’t get that chance will he? Because he was to slow to come to terms with his own feelings, because he wasn’t fast enough to save him. He wonders how many times that thought alone has made him bury his face in the bed so Alfred doesn't have to hear him sob his soul out.

_____________________________________________  
You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey,  
You’ll never know, Dear,  
How much I love you.  
Please don’t take my sunshine away.  
____________________________________________

They said there had been complications.

“He’s experienced massive trauma, he’s bleeding in his brain,” kind of complications, “his lungs have collapsed,” kind of complications, “he’s experiencing massive internal bleeding,” kind of complications, “we can’t operate, if we put him under he most likely won’t come back,” kind of complications.

The kind of complications you never want to hear because it means everything is over. He remembers so vividly the exact path he took into the room, the feeling of the JL’s eyes on him, of Jim Gordon watching him from the doorway. He remembers trying to stop the trembling, to keep a straight face. He remembers touching the clowns face, fingers brushing against the outer rim of a black eye that Bruce remembers giving him, and despite his efforts he’s trembling.

He remembers the way they stare at him as he takes a seat next to the clown, settling in for the long run, the last good bye’s. There prying eyes never leave him. So he doesn't kiss Joker’s forehead like he wants to, but he softly rests his own against the pale clowns, and softly whispers all the untold truths he holds. He knows Joker can’t hear them, he’s near brain dead, but Bruce can’t keep them in any longer. He stays for as long as he can, and when they finally call his time, he goes home and he cries.

Ever since then he can’t sleep, and ever since the funeral he’s made a habit of checking on the grave. It’s only been three days and already vandals are desecrating the Joker, angry Gothamites who can’t get over their own issues. So he takes good care of the Joker’s grave, gently washes away the spray painted faces and words, gently pats the kicked up dirt down, and lays a bouquet of lilacs atop the the grave. He’ll come back tomorrow with a fresh one, like always, because someone doesn’t like the clown getting his respects, he’ll wash the gravestone, like he always does, pat down the dirt again with his hand, maybe gently kiss his hand and lay it atop the stone, and sit on his knees, silently talking to the clown, begging for forgiveness. Eventually he curl into himself, try to stifle the tears and fail, Alfred will find him there and take him home, give him something to drink, and start up a conversation to distract him from his inner demons. Even now, Alfred is loyal to him, and Bruce is grateful for his butler, and yet he doesn’t want to burden him more than he already does. So he’ll finish his drink and conversation, and then go to his room where he’ll lock himself up. He doesn’t care if Gotham needs Batman, nor does he care if it needs Bruce Wayne. Because, infuriatingly so, the Joker was right.

There is no him without Joker. There is no Bruce Wayne, there is no Batman. There’s just him, who ever he was, alone, trying to make sense of this bleak world and constantly turning up empty handed. He wondered how long it would take for his mind to grow tired of turning up answerless, before it started to make it’s own.

The answer, it seemed, was 16 days, 42 hours, and 12 minutes after the Joker’s death. He saw a small flicker from the corner of his eyes, a flash of white and green and purple, and he swore on his parents’ graves he heard a little laugh. From there it was a downward spiral, laughter in the night, but this time it went beyond his dream world, clowns tapping on his window, purring for attention, under his bed trying to grab his ankles and trip him onto the soft fabric, or hiding in his closet trying to just get a glimpse of him. They were in the shower, singing loud and out of tune, or at the mirror layering on lip stick, sometimes on themselves, sometimes on the mirror, sometimes he was in the kitchen, about to start a meal, or burn the house to the ground. But where he was most active was the Bat Cave, constantly reminiscing about this suit and that old gadget, or bugging him about what he was doing, or what the other members of the Bat Family where up to. And Bruce was driving himself mad, because a month into the hallucinations he started to talk back, began to forget it wasn’t real, no matter how many times a day he visited the Joker’s grave (some days it was in the double digits).

Bruce began to create his own Joker, a near perfect replica of the original, and when Alfred found Bruce hitting his head against the floor of the Bat Cave, apparently in some sort of fight, enough was enough. He got Bruce help, and of course Bruce protested, but eventually it became very clear what was wrong.

 

There was no more Bruce Wayne, just a shell inhabited by something much more broken.

There was no more Batman, just someone fragile and small who felt he could shield all he felt behind a cowl.

There was no more Joker, just a painful memory that he could not forget.

There was nothing left, because everything he loved was leaving him, dying or growing up, no longer needing him.  
Even Gotham was curing herself of illness in the absence of the Joker.

Bruce was truly nothing. Gotham no longer needed Batman, there was no need for Bruce Wayne’s charities anymore, there was no Joker to love or to fight, there was no need to scold Dick or Tim or Damian about being good kids, there was nothing left. Nothing but a grave.

So he spent his days caring for Joker’s grave, the only purpose he had left. Because as the years stretched on, the vandalism never stopped, it became a tradition among friends, and kids began to catch onto it, and so everyday Bruce would bring the lilacs and his cleaning supplies, and he’d care for the grave. Sometimes, there would be black and red roses there, and he’d softly place the lilacs next to them, and go home. More often than not the grave was empty, the grass never grew because nothing could settle in the dirt with how often it was kicked up, and, after awhile, it seemed like a taboo place for plants to grow on.

Bruce grew old, Alfred died and Bruce mourned, but he still went through with his duties of caring for the clown’s grave.

Until one day, he lay down, tried from the walk, sat and softly talked to Joker, who sometimes still existed in the corners of his eye. That night, a regular vandalizer and his friends came by to trash the grave again, but instead they found Bruce Wayne with the Batman cowl in his arms, a plume of lilacs under his head, laying on top of the grave cold and unmoving. Bruce was buried with the clown, and no one dared to defile Bruce Wayne’s grave, not after finding him with the cowl, not after his will described how to get into the Bat Cave, because who would dare defile Batman’s grave? So they let them rest, the bat and the clown finally together in the earth.

They say, sometimes, if you listen close enough, you can hear them laughing together, watching over each other's graves, madly in love to the end of time, until there souls themselves faded away.


End file.
